Declaration, Constitutional Convention, Constitution and Presidental Leadership

The Declaration of Independence






Some Crash Course Videos -- there is an entire series that I recommend adding to your outside work for credit.  Please discuss this with your parents first.














The Constitutional Convention

We watched Lesson 1 from A More Perfect Union: America Becomes a Nation.  We will continue to study the Constitution and how the concerns from years ago are similiar to today.

• Individual Biographies of the Delegates to the Constitutional Convention

US Presidents -- Qualities and Leadership

• The Presidents Job Description (textbook excerpt)
• Presidental Leadership (30 page PDF Textbook excerpt)
• US Presidents: Facts, Pictures, Videos and Speeches (History Channel)
• American President: A Refernce Resource (Miller Center)

Assignment: Please choose one president to investigate.  We'll expand on this assignment later in the semester.  

The Constitution









Assignment: Please explore the Bill of Rights.  We will be going over these during the next few classes.

Bill of Rights

• Bill of Rights Institute
• America's Founding Documents (National Archives)
• The Bill of Rights (National Institute for Constitutional Studies)

Assignment: Investigate when Carolina split into two (North and South) and why.

TWRA Guest Speaker

TWRA Agent Nathan Ripley taught the Governent class on Wednesday, September 28, 2016.  He was informative and interesting -- note the board is covered with topics for continued research.

Here are some of the topics that were covered:

Tennessee Government

• Constitution
• Organization
• Rights and Privileges

Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency

• History  and how funded
• TN Code Annotated (TCA)
• Lexis Nexis TN Code
• Biodiversity
• Math Lesson on Biodiversity
• Biodiversity Map

Tennessee Wildlife Commission

• Government Oversight Committee

US Fish and Wildlife Service

• History
• Pesticides
• Intro to Wildlife Laws

Laws

• Code
• Rules and Regulations
•  Proclaimations 
• Process of Making a Law (Federal)
• Legislative Process (State)
• Bad Science
• Albino Deer
• Lacey Act 
• CITES
• Sunset Law

Judicial System

• Understanding Your Court System (lesson)
• Poaching
• Endangered Species in TN

Federal Standards and State Laws

• Example: Blood Alcohol Level and Boating
• Federal Standard
• State Standards
• Federal Funding
• Lobbying

I think I have covered most of the topics we covered in class.  It was amazing to see how so many aspects of Government are encased within the realm of Wildlife Conservation.  

Assignments: 

1. If you have not memorized the Preamble, please do so (you get a giant candy bar if you do).
2. As you are eating the candy bar, I figure you will break it apart.  We are going to do that with the Preamble.  Choose a section to and research what it means.  Ex.  We the People (Who is that?  How does that apply to felons? What did it mean historically? What does it mean now?)

       3. Review the Bill of Rights 

I have mentioned Crash Course videos and Hip Hughes History.  Here is a link to Crash Course US Government and Politics to check out. And here is a link to Hip Hughes History on the Constitution.

We discussed a little bit about the debate, but not much.  Please do some investigating about the Presidential Debate (history and more).








 Also, please investigate the two-party system.









Next week we will discuss the topics covered by our guest speaker and we will get into the Bill of Rights.  The following week we will have another special guest join us to cover Special Interest Groups.

Above are the brainstorming we did in class.

We will continue to explore types of governments this week.

Here is a video that can help:




We'll also be exploring the balance of power in the USA -- here are a couple of videos:








The two assignments are:

1) Please look at the governmental system in your favorite people group.  If you forget what you mentioned, please look at the first photo on this page.  Please be willing and ready to share your findings with the class.

2) Poverty -- That was one of the issues concerning you.  Find a recent article or something about poverty and be willing to share it with the class.

Look forward to another great discussion this week!